The best channel on RUclips. An extremely enlightening introduction to philosophy and the history of Western thought. Thanks, Messrs. Sugre and Staloff!
This guy is fab. Great lectures. I got hooked a few days ago. I've always been negative about Pomos since Alan Sokal, Gross + Levitt, etc, but I'm not brainy enough to take it apart like Dr Sugrue.
Surely this means that to maintain that 2 + 2 = 4 is unjust and totalitarian and is unfair to those who believe otherwise, e.g. 2 + 2 = 3. But this would make so everyday a task as shopping impossible. We aren't even allowed to tell the time. Or weigh out food. He is deeply involved in a performative contradiction.
I'm always looking for new interesting lectures on Psychology/Philosophy, please let me know if you guys have any recommendations, would be highly appreciated
Self promotion: I made a summary of Lyotard's book and spent over teo weeks making his ideas intelligible. Many people say it's great so you might like it 🙈 ruclips.net/video/LIZwhWwSaJY/видео.html
I think the question of Silencing the Different is not whether the majority feels the terror, or whether a minority feels terror in a given moment, but that when some established line is crossed, overt physical terror is very likely to emerge. If something is prohibited, then eventually coercive force and carceral behavior will be expressed. This implication and potentiality is apparently what is being opposed. We seem to be left with coordinating feelings and arriving by experiment at what arrangements of subjectivities will achieve equilibrium and lasting adherence. It wouldn't be "right" or "wrong" but that set of assumptions that relatively few dislike. Until, of course, people are "convinced" to expand the line of taboo by a new mass feeling that catches on. So a Constitutional order would not say what is right but make appeals to what most people find acceptable in terms of how change is managed.
@@dr.michaelsugrue Thanks for responding! Your lectures are amazing. I do think that criticizing Alex Jones, resisting his program, and taking legal action against him is valid. It's inevitable that people harmed will react. And I suppose our governments are ways to socialize and moderate our reactions. We are fated to be with others. We will always struggle to find some way to make life workable with others. The social element, suggested way back with Socrates and his ethics, cannot be totally shaken. In this I take a little from Edouard Glissant in that dialogue, no matter how fraught or seemingly incommensurate, is still just about all we really have. Whether by prose or poetry, the continued effort appears unavoidable.
Sir. This is an absolutely wonderful encapsulation of Leotards thought. I know you did this a while ago, but your critique lends to the explanation of Leotards post modern condition. I can only hope to be as wonderful of a philosopher as you are.
This is where I've been at lately trying to wrap my head around where the justifications are coming from to support post modern and Leftist morality when they have no belief in things like grand narratives.
Im in the same position. I just dont get it, maybe post modernism isnt as popular on the left as we are made to believe. Maybe leftists just want to say they are post modernist as a gesture of progressivism, because it seems to me like true post modernists would reject almost everything that the left is fighting for.
@@elijahisbell2622 after learning about Nietzsche's slave morality and herd mentality with just a sprinkle of Post Modernism to justify it I think the Left is much easier to understand. I'm still just blown away by how quickly things got really weird and culty with the Left. There was always weird Conservative Christians and the Left was sort of the voice of reason but now? It's just a mess.
I hate this ridiculous line of philosophy. It goes nowhere, gets nowhere, entitles itself to dissolve everything into a pile of nothing, says there is no basis or foundation for anything and says consensus is tyrany. Somebody, anybody tell me what kind of a society can survive if it adopts this thinking. No one ever gets to a point ever ao nothing can ever get done going around and around in an infinite discourse, all being of value and yet no value at all, so how do you decide ANYTHING EVER! Its so idiotic and brain melting even hearing it makes me want to guage my eyes out...
Are postmodern Epiphanies not postmodern in their own sense? Or is this association a feeling tied to these times of the 2020's-2030's. Or could this be an example of Metamodernism
While I think this is an incredible lecture, his ending sentiments on how people don't realize they're terrified because there aren't enough dissenting opinions offered aged very poorly. The whole point in these scenarios is to lull a population and protect them from what they shouldn't be aware of, for years or decades, until their ability to choose, know why they believe what they believe, or hold their own opinions and make their own decisions is severely constrained, and those who rule over them are selected from a miniscule group of elites who all offer the same lack of inherent value or benefit to anyone underneath, and they have no power to stop the tide any longer. Their terror is now realized.
I think I understand your argument but the problem with telling people they should be terrorized by the conditions they are is that you are exerting your will to power on them. Why should they believe your meta narrative? Every civilization is corrupt in some way. People will always be enslaved in some way or another
@@crisgon9552 I don't necessarily believe that people should accept my narrative. It's just my observation of the society around me. I believe there is a terror gripping our collective consciousness deep down that seems to be chipping away at our souls, and pushing people on the edge over the brink. The difference with our time now is the sheer amount of information and ease of access. While that does create obvious complication, with enough time and research from diverse sources you can form a unique and fairly comprehensive opinion on the challenges with our environment today. What I found is that those in power insert terror as a driving force into our lives if we are unaware. But being aware does not necessarily help, as we may gain the terror of seeing the machinations of the world forces and their growing success. So I think in either case, terror is a much more prominent part of our reality. That said, I have my own biases. I'm curious to know what everyone else finds.
It's hard to tell how much of this lecture is eisegesis, and how much is importation from Lyotard's other works. In any event, while apt in many places, it also ends up relying too heavily on caricatures and summary arguments--most regularly, the peritrope (tail-eating trick). As such, it doesn't represent a close reading of 'The Postmodern Condition,' and isn't particularly charitable to Lyotard. Just for example, it may be a little a little sardonic to characterize Lyotard as 'gesturing in the void,' and 'talking about God knows what, for God knows what reason.' Lyotard explains in the appendix, for instance, that postmodern aesthetics inhabit the modernist gap opened between the conceivable and the presentable, in which reality slips away: it finds at once a nostalgia for the limits of presentation, and exultation in the power to conceive--to conceive new 'rules of the game,' new artistic forms in this case, like the high modernist motto, 'make it new!' It is equally a political project, in which freedom, creativity, and differential space for the Other are valorized--but these are no more ersatz values for Lyotard than they were for Nietzsche, or Lévinas, or Derrida--or indeed continue to be for any western liberal! Indeed, these values appear crucial whenever the threat of totalitarianism bulks large. In this case, the threat follows from the scientific progress of late/high modernity, with its rationalization, computerization, and systems-control of all things (thus references to Luhmann)--that is, the threat of technocracy. As Keith Chrome rightly notes, Lyotard's greatest concern is with the prospect of techno-scientific control of all of life. His rallying cries to experimentation & avant-gardism, and to the same creative 'performativity' in postmodern science, are intended to resist this technocracy... and one can scarcely fail to see its relevance to today's digital age, with its 'big data,' algorithmic manipulation of both social media & marketplace, and technology capitalism beyond what Lyotard might have imagined. 'Paralogy' is the emblem of anti-technocratic resistance, but it doesn't connote mere nonsense. See note 211, for example: "“It has not been possible within the limits of this study to analyze the form assumed by the return of narrative in discourses of legitimation. Examples are: the study of open systems, local determinism, antimethod-in general, everything that I group under the name paralogy.” References to open systems and locality simply name anti-totalitarianism; narrative simply denominates one locus of resistance. Let's take Sugrue's example of Singapore. It's supposed to be a contradiction of Lyotard, per Sugrue, that Singaporeans don't all feel 'terrorized' by their 'soft authoritarian' government. But it is nowhere clear that one must *feel* or *express* terror to be so, and Lyotard does not employ a psychological definition of 'terror' at any rate. Terror, he says, is forceful elimination from the play of language games. If one does not perceive the latent danger of such eliminations--the threat to free speech, the spectre of thought control, the silencing of all marginality--then perhaps Lyotard has little to say to them. Such actions are not in the domain of language games or free play; they do not arise from local & organic determinism. On the contrary, they represent a metadiscourse (or metaprescriptive) imposed by heteronomous power upon players. 'Soft authoritarianism,' is not 'just another language game' then, according to which Lyotard would contradict himself. It's rank context control & domination--the metadiscourse of power & efficiency... instead of clouds, networks, and dispersions of local discourses (games)--the kind of intermediary associations (for example) that real democracy thrives on. For those curious, I suggest reading Lyotard yourselves and joining the lively conversations that postmodern theory has variously spurred.
Ah, the rare reader of Lyotard. Thanks for the read. I also found it strange how the lecturer, despite seemingly having read The Differend, didn't point out that it's not simply a matter of lacking a metarule, metanarrative, or totalizing genre of discourse, but also the fact that a "move" must be made (whether as inaction or action). In such a situation, either a discursive exclusion or the invention of a new rule will occur. It is here that the dynamism of Lyotard's thinking can be found, one that is opposed to any "egoistic" gazing into the void.
Thanks for your comment. While I zeroed in on the kind of eliminative moves that ultimately colonize and silence, for Lyotard, I appreciate your emphasis on the dynamism that results from one's 'thrownness' into the game, if I may appropriate such language. It's rather like Pascal's "Discourse Concerning the Machine" (commonly (mis)understood as 'The Wager'): "Yes, but you have to wager. It is not up to you, you are already committed." Lyotard's dynamism seems related in some ways to Derrida's fascination with Niezschean free play--and their mutual rejection of stultification, petrification, and excessive constraint. What's odd to me is that Sugrue, who appears to be fairly centrist liberal, should miss (or balk at) the patent commitment to libertarianism and the political conditions required for its flourishing, in most postmodern thinkers--Lyotard included. For a centrist liberal, is the freedom for innovation really so abominable? Anti-totalitarianism so upsetting? The unsettling nature of postmodern metaphysics and epistemology (for example), seems to have confused its critics as to its politics--with the baffling effect that they rage against the very thing they stand for: non-coercive, egalitarian freedom. Cheers,
"To be really free, you have to constantly negating; ney saying, negation, rejection, jt means that undermining of established verites, and suspicion has now become an end in itself, it's not a means towards any substantial reality. It just gives us something to do. for no reason.. Gesturing at the void. Gesturing in the dark and at the dark...venturing in the direction of talking to ourselves...everyone is right and it's impossible to be mistaken. Very playful activity, criticizing for the sake of criticizing." The gesturing in the dark and at tne dark----that part was crazy! Blew my mind. Reminded me of The Decent where those deformed humanoids that adapted to survive the caves. They are like the strangers that lurk in in a kind of culdisac margin and can never find their way back to the more centered center place from where they fell away from. Until the inevitable dead end rears it's head like the Nuremburg trial where the crimes against humanity were proven to be beyond any and all reasonable doubt so obviously so that the world agreed on a single perspective of what is Justice: those people on trial who broke no previously written or established law, yet the defendants were found guilty of an expo facto law, yet a law so deeply ingrained in all purposeful human interaction that it could only be the logos that spoke the spirit of the law into existence for humanity to shape justice on earth to the platonic Justice which no one has ever seen but we know we stumbled closer to the mythical lady Justice herself. This time, there is a very clear law where lady liberty can always see for herself such crimes against humanity.
This was great! Honestly, on the one hand, I appreciate some of the ideas from Lyotard. To make room for different perspectives and allowing these to dialogue seems good. Nothing wrong with freedom of opinion and freedom of speech. But there is something wrong about letting astrology and modern science be taught side by side and let people decide for themselves what to believe. I prefer my doctor to have studied scientific medicine when I go to the hospital.. Sure, all perspectives are "equal", but when you really try to put these ideas in practice, these ideas seem preposterous. Some perspectives are simply more "true" than others, and once you lose that distinction (i.e. "truth does not exist") any kind of human progress is stifled. Imagine an anorexic child telling you: "the perspective that eating is important is simply a perspective". Whatever. At the end of the day, you want your child to not die and start eating.
postmodernism seems to miss another key point in my mind. Primarily: what about consesuses that increase freedom? for example, the consesus that murder is wrong. sure, that limits the freedom of murderers, but increases the freedom of everybody else. it seems to me that 'the good life' or 'good freedom' and also 'good justice' is made up of an equal balance of freedom and law, order and chaos. postmodernists have gone too far in the direction of total freedom.
but this lyotard is doing the same thing he says he is against. he is also creating an umbrella meta narrative that diversity is good i.e. totalitarian while accusing history of doing the same.
The most annoying thing I’ve seen Lyotard write was his rejection of the Marxian concept of alienation and assertion that the proletariat is actually masochistic.
Poor Professor Sugrue having to play the Sophist to sell the Skeptics far too many centuries later to ever be believed. Who decided that Lyotard was even worth a lecture? Much about nothing, but great performance. Thankfully I didn’t have to pay college tuition to experience it.
@@salvit6024 I don't even remember what this was about. Why revive a 6-month-old conversation? Do you have nothing better to do? So f'n cringe rofl 🤣 🤣
@@metalsoup6950 someone who has never read and therefore cannot identify and critique fascist philosophy who defaults to-"Anything I don't like is fascist, and the less I like it, the more fascist it becomes."
Thank you very much Dr. Sugrue... I dread the day that there are no new uploads. Your lectures are absolutely priceless and a glowing legacy of your academic work that, God willing, will serve as a guiding light for countless generations of humanity.
@@pbohearn to find the truth in a world full of false information, there must be winner and loser. i’m sure you’re familiar with socrates walking around the streets of athens testing strangers ideas of politics and life in order to find truth. if we become complacent with our ideas as “good enough” without stopping to think “what if i’m wrong?” there is no growth
@@pbohearn if game could loosely refer to engaging in a stimulating activity for the sake of passing time, yes this is a game. The search for "truth" should not be your main priority. I mean it's cool feeling like you have the right answers but I think prioritizing mental stability is more fulfilling
@@pbohearno. Think about the position of chess pieces at a given time. Then let truth and chaos represent the white and black pieces. The point of philosophy is to better position the white pieces such that humans have prosperity in the face of chaos
"it is intellectual sterility" I think I agree. It seems to me that this idea of paralogy as it is explained in this lecture requires grand meta narratives just to exist. If the rate of rebellion against these meta narratives grows faster than the rate at which meta narratives grow then what do we do when there are no more meta narratives to rebel against? What do we do when mt. Everest is gone?
Dad said, Pomo was not cultural life as we know it, it was a 20th century intellectual fungus that lived off of the fallen redwoods of the Enlightenment. Now its last exponents are starving and raging that there is nothing left to consume, it has morphed into totalitarian cancel culture and no platforming by the neo-Maoist/neoliberal Trustafarians' and their online noise machine. Dad quoted Cormac McCarthy, "Too dead to know enough to lie down", nowadays, pomo is a period piece from another century, awkward and boring, intellectual carrion inedible except by a desperate clan of defanged intellectual predators who have spent their careers like Japanese soldiers hidden in tropical jungles in 1965, still vigorously fighting a war that had been lost many years ago.
@@dr.michaelsugrue It's funny that your dad calls out pomos for using the word "interrogate" as being an emotive word which betrays their naive romanticism and yet you and he are just as biased in your editorializing about pomo
Discourse is dead Gesture is the new god, Knowledge replaced by opinion, persuasion has won over the need to convince Gesturing into the void Gesturing into the direction of talking to ourselves It seems the Frankfurt school and the postmodernists have kind of perfectly predicted the modern man, I understand there is a certain amount of jest in the last quarter of the lecture, towards this way of thinking but it has no doubt come to fruition. So what now!
Build structures which mould and support strong individuals and design an empire around a set of guiding principles and values extracted from the best of empires? Or wait for it all to collapse into nuclear Armageddon. Can't be worse than the shitshow we live in, can it?
@@michaelthomas6280 not really. There are many postmodernisms, left and right-wing, even centrist posmodernism. Republicans are so postmodern in their radical cynicism and nihilism. Democrats are postmodernists in their addiction to "constructionist approach" to everything.
@@sabinoluevano7447 But i'd recommend u to explore why people voted for trump first, so u can get a kickstart understanding of classical liberalism and their emphasis on freedom of speech.
I very much appreciate these lectures. Even when all of my professors say to pursue another subject worthy of my time, or could achieve income necessary to retirement. Philosophy isn't meant to be profited off of and compartmentalized into a monetization scheme. And it isn't just a language game to confirm my rhetorics. It is a place to learn, live and grow. We are all human and although we may reject each other we should not reject life itself.
I mean this respectfully but if you have professors saying that you've got some lousy professors on your hands! Dream big kiddo. You could be the next Kant if you set your mind to it!
It's unlikely you'll be the next Kant as per Kishore Das, but at least you will have given thought to your actions. And you know what the ancients said about the unreflected life........
When is philosophy NOT life...you are right it is about self growth...why are the two not one. The beauty of your professors is that they see a shining star in you...it all ego...theirs. Do what works with your soul. Also appreciate it that your professors care. Bottom line, it's your life.
I think maybe these points of view are not more widely disseminated because they would lead to the loss of a considerable amount of intellectual camoflage essential to the currency of a number of academic positions.
This man has been pwning the intellectual elite for 30 years. Damn, Michael, you truly are a gem. I can’t tell you how lucky I feel to be able to access this.
I never thought I would encounter an intellectual equal to Jordan Peterson. This man transcends even his scope of philosophy. We are so lucky to have this for free.
@@Craiglicious000 Sugrue and many other living philosophers far exceed Peterson. Peterson doesn't read the books and ideas he critiques, for if he had read any post-modernism, like Sugrue clearly has, he would not use the term post-modern marxism. It is a contradiction in terms, and as Sugrue points out, Lyotard attacks critical Marxism. The fact that Peterson does not know this, is embarrassing.
@@OdoItal When I used to listen to Peterson, I was like 18 and hadn't a clue about philosophy so I took me a while to outgrow him. And while he actually is pretty well read, you're right about his ridiculous post modern prejudice.
@@robbeck4358 Sad, an attempt to elevate your vocabulary and use the word you found in a thesaurus in the wrong context; all in a futile attempt to add character to a baseless claim. A better word for your sentence would be purports. Expound is used for a positive context, purport for the derogatory. 👍
@@Reignor99 thanks, I don't want to make personal criticism of Sugrue. The postmodernists saw today's problems 50 years ago. These identify how democracy is overwhelmed by technology, now digitally integrated by the security state. Hiding behind the framework of democracy now lies a financial-military elite determined to take-over the world on a false prospectus. US capitalism is destroying the environment and the social contract for 90% of humanity. This is the line of conflict reflected today in relations between US/Russia and China. The Non-Aligned Movement is also on board here, so 140-150 countries of the world have watched and been victims of US capitalism, not democracy, for seventy years since the 2ndWW. The end of the Unipolar/Imperial moment is here, or the end of the world. WW3 is here already: simply search online for references.
@@robbeck4358 I mean, he was explaining Lyotard quite well I think. Just very opinionated, but that doesn't matter if you know which parts are opinions and which parts are theory, I didn't mind it as someone who generally tends to lean to the postmodern way of viewing things. I have to add that mostly all of his critique of Lyotard is completly valid and well thought out.
I mean I pretty much agree about postmodernism but I honestly feel like these past couple lectures just come off almost as rants lol. Like I don’t really think I have a grasp on what exactly makes lyotard’s thought distinct after watching this, but I get that postmodernism has lots of problems.
It seems to me that Sugrue does not give a fair account of Lyotard's work. Like many American commentators, Sugrue seems to fall in to the trap of suggesting that Lyotard is advocating a Postmodern way of thinking, or a way of doing philosophy, but Lyotard's book is arguably much more of an account of how we 'do think' rather than how we 'should think'. Lyotard linked the rise of Postmodernism to the development of "late capitalism." He argued that consumer culture and mass media, key features of late capitalism, create a fragmented and superficial experience of knowledge. Although Lyotard highlighted the inadequacies of grand narratives, he also questioned the absolute dismissal of all grand narratives, arguing that some narratives can offer valuable guidance, even if they are not universally applicable.
The Postmodern condition can be defined as the rejection of Industrialism as the defining methodology of society. Or by disenfranchisement from Industry, both of which lead individuals to focus on the Self. For some, this can lead to a more authentic life. For others, it leads to the lifestyle of January 6. Now, with common folk having access to computers, trucks, and guns, someone will have to define the Self in a postmodern milieu.
@@dr.michaelsugrue Well, everything is relative. I guess. Leni Riefenstahl considered her subjects to be authentic. But I meant authentic as genuine, coming naturally from impulses of the archetypal self, without being vitiated by the framework of industrialism. Yeats called inauthentic living “automatonism.” Like Ashli, who ignored Democratic reforms of usury and charged with the mob Part of the self is animal aggression. There is also rationalism, aesthetics and the transcendent. Robert M. Pirsig used the term "quality" to mean an authentic, harmonious preconscious relationship between these impulse systems. Pirsig used the word “quality,” much the same as Heidegger used “authenticity.”
Dad said that Riefenstahl, Heidegger, Goebbels and the rest WERE authentic, which makes manifest the vacuity of such moral judgement. What is authenticity good for? Why should we want it? It is a verbal disguise for nihilism, insignificant and empty.
What would be more authentic than living out the logical conclusion of your moral believes. If you believe the election was stolen it would an obligation to storm the capitol, if no other option is available.
It never ceases to make me laugh how anyone can state "There are no meta narratives" without admitting the categorical, definitive, absolutist nature of their statement. Gee, and I thought the heart of philosophy was self-awareness and developing objectivity towards oneself??
35:00 really funny that this was mentioned. this was exactly what i was saying to my mother the other day in light of the supreme court’s recent decision. had no idea mr lyotard came up with this idea already but it’s something i definitely believe about modern politics. these people dont even agree on the axioms, so how could they possibly agree on conclusions.
The most annoying and sophomore thing about postmodern philosophers is they depend on the rationality of previous philosophies and or Frameworks to discredit those Frameworks and support their own. In other words they are saying "let me tell you why all these other moral and philosophical systems are garbage" using the logic and reasoning of those moral and philosophical systems to build their arguements. It's a complete non starter. "Nothing means anything or whatever" is the most trivial and obvious non arguement, as it does nothing to move the conversation forward. In logic/computer programming, it's the equivalent of the NULL. It is nothing, and therefore the problem solving/algorithm cannot continue.
when I listen about this, I can't help but see how objectiveness and subjectiveness are kind of yin-yang opposites. The more you try to sway and cement one view you find out you cannot actually live and proclaim the one view before becoming unhealthy or insane. from one hand you want to find the Truth, the good way of living, finding Objective value systems that is right, according to logic and reason. But then you hit this closed and rigid wall of being too tyraneous or "prickly" as A.Watts says. And you find yourself in need of some kind of pluralism, something that truthfulness and rightness can be opposed to, so you actually need this "gooeyness". But then again if you will go all gooey plural and diverse, then everybody has its own subjective truth, and you will hit another wall, or rather hole, that we cannot even communicate effectively, because we live in a tower of Babel, where we cannot speak the same language, have common values, or even same money system... because you know, why should I respect that money has value for this somebody, if I do not agree to you system of objective values. I am not even sure what you say to me is true, because I dont agree with your meaning of words you are using...(You see where I am going with this?) I also cannot avoid to see the analogical connection to political rightists and leftists. They in a way cannot agree with each other at the same time but cannot live without each other. You cannot come to a conclusion with those, is it diversity vs oneness (so to speak)... Not one of them can be a "winner", every time one of them wins they actually lose on all sorts of levels. its like a no go situation, a numb limbo.... you have to choose one way but you cannot choose it completely... It does seem a bit nihilistic...
The way I think of it is this: on the color spectrum there are sections which are undoubtedly red and others which are undoubtedly not red, say, purple. In that sense, we have near certainty one is red and one is purple, and red is not purple, so we can call this objective. But there are an infinite amount of colors in between red and purple, such that you can't tell sometimes if it's more red or more purple. Objectivity and subjectivity are not necessarily exclusive. That is to say, just because you can argue we can know nothing for certain in the absolute sense doesn't mean that we can't say some things are more certain than others, which allows us to formulate a system of thought that is at least functional and practical. Yin and Yang were always meant to be balanced and mixed, not chosen between.
@LS1212 our need for rough approximations to stand in for definitions does not invade the sanctity of the concept of objectivity. You perfectly articulate my biggest gripe with the balance fanatics. To say that there is balance or a pursuit towards balance speaks of the existence of a rigid false dichotomy. A great book against this binary morality is thus spoke zarathustra.
Isn't P.M a necessary 'check and balance' mechanism by which power of once group is kept in check by the ever emerging marginal elements and participants that were previously unrepresented in the Democratic process. It is those many factions being able to hold the symbolic dagger to plunge in to the symbolic 'Caesar' that tries to take total control? Not saying anything is good or bad about it though through this lens it does have some function.
I'm no PHD from Columbia but I know post-modern philosophy isn't trying to be prescriptive. If anything it can be a touch hypocritical as what I consider the most critical piece to the scientific method is scrutiny and the understanding that every logical premise is in it's nature falsifiable. Would science want to be proven wrong if it were? Why this vitriol?
"desire for the unknown" 3:20 is ambiguous! Does this mean we desire to dispel the unknown, or that we actually desire to not know things? Haha indignation used to be an emotion now its a job 4:20 hilarious. It sounds like post modernism is more of a personality disorder.
what are you rebelling against - marlon Brando says; what u got? Postmodernism at its greatest - comedic and deadly serious at the same time. Love that analysis. Can't believe how many people believed in this crap when I read sociology - their claims on a society without meaning, truth, agency and their massacre of linguistics is almost laughable. Intellectual pursuit for the game of it - or as Michael asks What sense does it make? we find this really interesting. LOL. I love how Michael Is such a good pedagogue that he can both explain, even contract and compare highpoint in various works of this extreme positions and always always end with a thoughtful great ending rhetoric.
RIP Dr Sugrue. Thank you for all the knowledge you gave us!
Hi died ?
no
@@Tyrannosaurus_5000
Unfortunately @@Tyrannosaurus_5000
Still alive
@@Tyrannosaurus_5000 january of 2024
"The result of this scrupolosity is not intellectual cleanliness, it is intellectual sterility". That's my sense too. Thank you!
RIP. Your lectures are diamond in a flow of information
4:29 “There was a time when indignation was an emotional, now it’s a job.” My favorite line of his ever.
The best channel on RUclips. An extremely enlightening introduction to philosophy and the history of Western thought. Thanks, Messrs. Sugre and Staloff!
"There was a time long ago, when indignation was an emotion, now it's a job." Truer words have never been spoken.
TO THE POINT, CLEAR. LOVE DR. SUGRUE❤️
I wish you success with this channel, professor. Excellent content.
What a guy! Thanks for the knowledge Dr Sugrue, RIP
“Indignation used to be an emotion, now it’s a job.”
Now it's a moral virtue.
jordan peterson
HIs final lines relieved my strained attitude toward post-modernism,
This guy is fab. Great lectures. I got hooked a few days ago. I've always been negative about Pomos since Alan Sokal, Gross + Levitt, etc, but I'm not brainy enough to take it apart like Dr Sugrue.
“Why are you criticizing this?” Why, because it’s there 😂😂 lmao
Dunno when this was recorded or when Lyotard wrote his works but given the content I'd easily be fooled into thinking it was all post 2018.
Excellent talk. Ten points for gryffindor!
Surely this means that to maintain that 2 + 2 = 4 is unjust and totalitarian and is unfair to those who believe otherwise, e.g. 2 + 2 = 3. But this would make so everyday a task as shopping impossible. We aren't even allowed to tell the time. Or weigh out food. He is deeply involved in a performative contradiction.
Yep.
The irony of Post-Modernism becoming a Meta-Narrative.
😂😂😂😂😂😂
I'm always looking for new interesting lectures on Psychology/Philosophy, please let me know if you guys have any recommendations, would be highly appreciated
Self promotion: I made a summary of Lyotard's book and spent over teo weeks making his ideas intelligible. Many people say it's great so you might like it 🙈
ruclips.net/video/LIZwhWwSaJY/видео.html
Have you read Robert Greene?
You could check out contrapoints on RUclips!
What a joy to hear someone interrogate the pomo interrogators with such ‘Scrupulousity’
I think the question of Silencing the Different is not whether the majority feels the terror, or whether a minority feels terror in a given moment, but that when some established line is crossed, overt physical terror is very likely to emerge. If something is prohibited, then eventually coercive force and carceral behavior will be expressed. This implication and potentiality is apparently what is being opposed.
We seem to be left with coordinating feelings and arriving by experiment at what arrangements of subjectivities will achieve equilibrium and lasting adherence. It wouldn't be "right" or "wrong" but that set of assumptions that relatively few dislike. Until, of course, people are "convinced" to expand the line of taboo by a new mass feeling that catches on. So a Constitutional order would not say what is right but make appeals to what most people find acceptable in terms of how change is managed.
Is the "silencing" of Alex Jones and his goons "terroristic". I think NOT silencing this avaricious conspiracy inventor is terroristic.
@@dr.michaelsugrue Thanks for responding! Your lectures are amazing.
I do think that criticizing Alex Jones, resisting his program, and taking legal action against him is valid. It's inevitable that people harmed will react. And I suppose our governments are ways to socialize and moderate our reactions.
We are fated to be with others. We will always struggle to find some way to make life workable with others. The social element, suggested way back with Socrates and his ethics, cannot be totally shaken. In this I take a little from Edouard Glissant in that dialogue, no matter how fraught or seemingly incommensurate, is still just about all we really have. Whether by prose or poetry, the continued effort appears unavoidable.
I gotta hand it to you... you got a lot of class, stay classy my friends
There was a time when indignation was an emotion and not job!
Sir. This is an absolutely wonderful encapsulation of Leotards thought. I know you did this a while ago, but your critique lends to the explanation of Leotards post modern condition. I can only hope to be as wonderful of a philosopher as you are.
This is where I've been at lately trying to wrap my head around where the justifications are coming from to support post modern and Leftist morality when they have no belief in things like grand narratives.
Im in the same position. I just dont get it, maybe post modernism isnt as popular on the left as we are made to believe. Maybe leftists just want to say they are post modernist as a gesture of progressivism, because it seems to me like true post modernists would reject almost everything that the left is fighting for.
@@elijahisbell2622 after learning about Nietzsche's slave morality and herd mentality with just a sprinkle of Post Modernism to justify it I think the Left is much easier to understand. I'm still just blown away by how quickly things got really weird and culty with the Left. There was always weird Conservative Christians and the Left was sort of the voice of reason but now? It's just a mess.
@@matthewgaulke8094 Now they promote paedophilia, following in the degenerate footsteps of Foucault and the gang.
I hate this ridiculous line of philosophy. It goes nowhere, gets nowhere, entitles itself to dissolve everything into a pile of nothing, says there is no basis or foundation for anything and says consensus is tyrany. Somebody, anybody tell me what kind of a society can survive if it adopts this thinking. No one ever gets to a point ever ao nothing can ever get done going around and around in an infinite discourse, all being of value and yet no value at all, so how do you decide ANYTHING EVER! Its so idiotic and brain melting even hearing it makes me want to guage my eyes out...
This guy is the boss.
Peace out.
Wow what a masterpiece. Thank you for your ontological contribution :)
Are postmodern Epiphanies not postmodern in their own sense? Or is this association a feeling tied to these times of the 2020's-2030's. Or could this be an example of Metamodernism
Does this mean that the Buddha was the first post-modernist with Kalama Sutta? Does strict prohibition of hate, greed, and delusion preclude that?
Please ,Which year this lecture was covered? Thanks
So just keep banging your head on the ground until something right for the moment sticks, hopefully it doesn't kill us.
That's all there is folks.
While I think this is an incredible lecture, his ending sentiments on how people don't realize they're terrified because there aren't enough dissenting opinions offered aged very poorly. The whole point in these scenarios is to lull a population and protect them from what they shouldn't be aware of, for years or decades, until their ability to choose, know why they believe what they believe, or hold their own opinions and make their own decisions is severely constrained, and those who rule over them are selected from a miniscule group of elites who all offer the same lack of inherent value or benefit to anyone underneath, and they have no power to stop the tide any longer. Their terror is now realized.
I think I understand your argument but the problem with telling people they should be terrorized by the conditions they are is that you are exerting your will to power on them. Why should they believe your meta narrative? Every civilization is corrupt in some way. People will always be enslaved in some way or another
@@crisgon9552 I don't necessarily believe that people should accept my narrative. It's just my observation of the society around me. I believe there is a terror gripping our collective consciousness deep down that seems to be chipping away at our souls, and pushing people on the edge over the brink.
The difference with our time now is the sheer amount of information and ease of access. While that does create obvious complication, with enough time and research from diverse sources you can form a unique and fairly comprehensive opinion on the challenges with our environment today.
What I found is that those in power insert terror as a driving force into our lives if we are unaware. But being aware does not necessarily help, as we may gain the terror of seeing the machinations of the world forces and their growing success. So I think in either case, terror is a much more prominent part of our reality.
That said, I have my own biases. I'm curious to know what everyone else finds.
It's hard to tell how much of this lecture is eisegesis, and how much is importation from Lyotard's other works. In any event, while apt in many places, it also ends up relying too heavily on caricatures and summary arguments--most regularly, the peritrope (tail-eating trick). As such, it doesn't represent a close reading of 'The Postmodern Condition,' and isn't particularly charitable to Lyotard. Just for example, it may be a little a little sardonic to characterize Lyotard as 'gesturing in the void,' and 'talking about God knows what, for God knows what reason.' Lyotard explains in the appendix, for instance, that postmodern aesthetics inhabit the modernist gap opened between the conceivable and the presentable, in which reality slips away: it finds at once a nostalgia for the limits of presentation, and exultation in the power to conceive--to conceive new 'rules of the game,' new artistic forms in this case, like the high modernist motto, 'make it new!' It is equally a political project, in which freedom, creativity, and differential space for the Other are valorized--but these are no more ersatz values for Lyotard than they were for Nietzsche, or Lévinas, or Derrida--or indeed continue to be for any western liberal! Indeed, these values appear crucial whenever the threat of totalitarianism bulks large. In this case, the threat follows from the scientific progress of late/high modernity, with its rationalization, computerization, and systems-control of all things (thus references to Luhmann)--that is, the threat of technocracy. As Keith Chrome rightly notes, Lyotard's greatest concern is with the prospect of techno-scientific control of all of life. His rallying cries to experimentation & avant-gardism, and to the same creative 'performativity' in postmodern science, are intended to resist this technocracy... and one can scarcely fail to see its relevance to today's digital age, with its 'big data,' algorithmic manipulation of both social media & marketplace, and technology capitalism beyond what Lyotard might have imagined. 'Paralogy' is the emblem of anti-technocratic resistance, but it doesn't connote mere nonsense. See note 211, for example: "“It has not been possible within the limits of this study to analyze the form assumed by the return of narrative in discourses of legitimation. Examples are: the study of open systems, local determinism, antimethod-in general, everything that I group under the name paralogy.” References to open systems and locality simply name anti-totalitarianism; narrative simply denominates one locus of resistance. Let's take Sugrue's example of Singapore. It's supposed to be a contradiction of Lyotard, per Sugrue, that Singaporeans don't all feel 'terrorized' by their 'soft authoritarian' government. But it is nowhere clear that one must *feel* or *express* terror to be so, and Lyotard does not employ a psychological definition of 'terror' at any rate. Terror, he says, is forceful elimination from the play of language games. If one does not perceive the latent danger of such eliminations--the threat to free speech, the spectre of thought control, the silencing of all marginality--then perhaps Lyotard has little to say to them. Such actions are not in the domain of language games or free play; they do not arise from local & organic determinism. On the contrary, they represent a metadiscourse (or metaprescriptive) imposed by heteronomous power upon players. 'Soft authoritarianism,' is not 'just another language game' then, according to which Lyotard would contradict himself. It's rank context control & domination--the metadiscourse of power & efficiency... instead of clouds, networks, and dispersions of local discourses (games)--the kind of intermediary associations (for example) that real democracy thrives on. For those curious, I suggest reading Lyotard yourselves and joining the lively conversations that postmodern theory has variously spurred.
Ah, the rare reader of Lyotard. Thanks for the read.
I also found it strange how the lecturer, despite seemingly having read The Differend, didn't point out that it's not simply a matter of lacking a metarule, metanarrative, or totalizing genre of discourse, but also the fact that a "move" must be made (whether as inaction or action). In such a situation, either a discursive exclusion or the invention of a new rule will occur. It is here that the dynamism of Lyotard's thinking can be found, one that is opposed to any "egoistic" gazing into the void.
Thanks for your comment. While I zeroed in on the kind of eliminative moves that ultimately colonize and silence, for Lyotard, I appreciate your emphasis on the dynamism that results from one's 'thrownness' into the game, if I may appropriate such language. It's rather like Pascal's "Discourse Concerning the Machine" (commonly (mis)understood as 'The Wager'): "Yes, but you have to wager. It is not up to you, you are already committed."
Lyotard's dynamism seems related in some ways to Derrida's fascination with Niezschean free play--and their mutual rejection of stultification, petrification, and excessive constraint. What's odd to me is that Sugrue, who appears to be fairly centrist liberal, should miss (or balk at) the patent commitment to libertarianism and the political conditions required for its flourishing, in most postmodern thinkers--Lyotard included. For a centrist liberal, is the freedom for innovation really so abominable? Anti-totalitarianism so upsetting? The unsettling nature of postmodern metaphysics and epistemology (for example), seems to have confused its critics as to its politics--with the baffling effect that they rage against the very thing they stand for: non-coercive, egalitarian freedom.
Cheers,
YOU ARE BRILLIANT. I know you.❤️
I love how you just put what Sugrue was critizing in a more complex terminology.
What would that be in English?
This makes the chaotic and meaningless society I was born in make a lot more sense
So much opinion about the subject of Postmodernism. How very postmodernist. Postmodernism does not reject science.
"To be really free, you have to constantly negating; ney saying, negation, rejection, jt means that undermining of established verites, and suspicion has now become an end in itself, it's not a means towards any substantial reality. It just gives us something to do. for no reason.. Gesturing at the void. Gesturing in the dark and at the dark...venturing in the direction of talking to ourselves...everyone is right and it's impossible to be mistaken. Very playful activity, criticizing for the sake of criticizing."
The gesturing in the dark and at tne dark----that part was crazy! Blew my mind. Reminded me of The Decent where those deformed humanoids that adapted to survive the caves. They are like the strangers that lurk in in a kind of culdisac margin and can never find their way back to the more centered center place from where they fell away from.
Until the inevitable dead end rears it's head
like the Nuremburg trial where the crimes against humanity were proven to be beyond any and all reasonable doubt so obviously so that the world agreed on a single perspective of what is Justice: those people on trial who broke no previously written or established law, yet the defendants were found guilty of an expo facto law, yet a law so deeply ingrained in all purposeful human interaction that it could only be the logos that spoke the spirit of the law into existence for humanity to shape justice on earth to the platonic Justice which no one has ever seen but we know we stumbled closer to the mythical lady Justice herself. This time, there is a very clear law where lady liberty can always see for herself such crimes against humanity.
Dad said you are talking about "natural law". He agrees.
Those last 2 minutes though!
i don't think people in singapore are actually happy, they're just numb.
This was great! Honestly, on the one hand, I appreciate some of the ideas from Lyotard. To make room for different perspectives and allowing these to dialogue seems good. Nothing wrong with freedom of opinion and freedom of speech. But there is something wrong about letting astrology and modern science be taught side by side and let people decide for themselves what to believe. I prefer my doctor to have studied scientific medicine when I go to the hospital.. Sure, all perspectives are "equal", but when you really try to put these ideas in practice, these ideas seem preposterous. Some perspectives are simply more "true" than others, and once you lose that distinction (i.e. "truth does not exist") any kind of human progress is stifled. Imagine an anorexic child telling you: "the perspective that eating is important is simply a perspective". Whatever. At the end of the day, you want your child to not die and start eating.
Martin William Martinez Charles Gonzalez Daniel
postmodernism seems to miss another key point in my mind.
Primarily: what about consesuses that increase freedom? for example, the consesus that murder is wrong. sure, that limits the freedom of murderers, but increases the freedom of everybody else.
it seems to me that 'the good life' or 'good freedom' and also 'good justice' is made up of an equal balance of freedom and law, order and chaos.
postmodernists have gone too far in the direction of total freedom.
Brillant misunderstanding of Lyotard’s work.
Perez Donna Smith John Williams Frank
this is sounding realliy kant like but with a bit less german
👏👏👏
2:50
Davis Margaret Robinson Michelle Jones Sandra
Fanfuckingtastic
but this lyotard is doing the same thing he says he is against. he is also creating an umbrella meta narrative that diversity is good i.e. totalitarian while accusing history of doing the same.
Now he is noy. But he is a bit idealistic
The most annoying thing I’ve seen Lyotard write was his rejection of the Marxian concept of alienation and assertion that the proletariat is actually masochistic.
Well that sounds spot on, why do you disagree?
Poor Professor Sugrue having to play the Sophist to sell the Skeptics far too many centuries later to ever be believed. Who decided that Lyotard was even worth a lecture? Much about nothing, but great performance. Thankfully I didn’t have to pay college tuition to experience it.
16:29 baby gronk rizz’d up livy dunn in front of kai cenat only in ohio! gyatt
whenever he's transitioning and hits us with the "nowww..." it is always deeply gratifying
Cool. Did you copy/paste this one directly from the other videos or did you at least try to put your own spin on it?
@@promark5317 Ironically, you comment is less original. So is this one. Chill. Nowww… Why criticise, man?
@@salvit6024 I don't even remember what this was about. Why revive a 6-month-old conversation? Do you have nothing better to do? So f'n cringe rofl 🤣 🤣
So cool this guy, “there was a time when indignation was an emotion, now it’s a job”
What is cool about that? Don't you see the fascism in that quote?
@@lekkerkoffie8605 "REEEE FASCISM" go back to reddit while the adults talk, mkay?
18:40 "To silence someone who is generating an alternative discourse is to terrorize that person. It is an unjust and oppressive activity"
@@lekkerkoffie8605 I don't, could you please genuinely explain it to me🙏🏽
@@metalsoup6950 someone who has never read and therefore cannot identify and critique fascist philosophy who defaults to-"Anything I don't like is fascist, and the less I like it, the more fascist it becomes."
very few professors can speak about such topic like this man. This is master class lecturing
I especially like the way he employs straw man arguments and innuendo to articulate his criticisms.
Thank you very much Dr. Sugrue... I dread the day that there are no new uploads. Your lectures are absolutely priceless and a glowing legacy of your academic work that, God willing, will serve as a guiding light for countless generations of humanity.
Hear! hear! my lad! hear! hear
He’s great, but this is a little hyperbolic
Nice profile picture dude.
@@markswamy6830 Amen
Perhaps dramatic but indeed possible
I love the way you're able to make a lecture on philosophy sound like the narration of a chess match with one set of ideas battling another.
So it’s a game then? Winning rather than finding the truth, or attempting to grapple with it.
He said like a narration of a chess game. We play Language Games so his comment isn't that far off. He mentioned nothing about winning or losing.
@@pbohearn to find the truth in a world full of false information, there must be winner and loser. i’m sure you’re familiar with socrates walking around the streets of athens testing strangers ideas of politics and life in order to find truth. if we become complacent with our ideas as “good enough” without stopping to think “what if i’m wrong?” there is no growth
@@pbohearn if game could loosely refer to engaging in a stimulating activity for the sake of passing time, yes this is a game. The search for "truth" should not be your main priority. I mean it's cool feeling like you have the right answers but I think prioritizing mental stability is more fulfilling
@@pbohearno. Think about the position of chess pieces at a given time. Then let truth and chaos represent the white and black pieces. The point of philosophy is to better position the white pieces such that humans have prosperity in the face of chaos
Dang Michael, tell us how you really feel
Sugrue is legendary.
Such a fitting subject for the times we're in
Thank you for posting your old lectures! I wished more professors would have done so for posterity
"it is intellectual sterility"
I think I agree. It seems to me that this idea of paralogy as it is explained in this lecture requires grand meta narratives just to exist. If the rate of rebellion against these meta narratives grows faster than the rate at which meta narratives grow then what do we do when there are no more meta narratives to rebel against? What do we do when mt. Everest is gone?
Dad said, Pomo was not cultural life as we know it, it was a 20th century intellectual fungus that lived off of the fallen redwoods of the Enlightenment. Now its last exponents are starving and raging that there is nothing left to consume, it has morphed into totalitarian cancel culture and no platforming by the neo-Maoist/neoliberal Trustafarians' and their online noise machine. Dad quoted Cormac McCarthy, "Too dead to know enough to lie down", nowadays, pomo is a period piece from another century, awkward and boring, intellectual carrion inedible except by a desperate clan of defanged intellectual predators who have spent their careers like Japanese soldiers hidden in tropical jungles in 1965, still vigorously fighting a war that had been lost many years ago.
@@dr.michaelsugrue What does your Dad think comes next?
I love the fact that Dr, Sugrue is alive and throwing shade. That statement is the biggest white pill, what a savage!
@@dr.michaelsugrue “the fallen redwoods of the enlightenment” is such a beautiful, beautiful sentence. Thank you.
@@dr.michaelsugrue It's funny that your dad calls out pomos for using the word "interrogate" as being an emotive word which betrays their naive romanticism and yet you and he are just as biased in your editorializing about pomo
Discourse is dead
Gesture is the new god,
Knowledge replaced by opinion, persuasion has won over the need to convince
Gesturing into the void
Gesturing into the direction of talking to ourselves
It seems the Frankfurt school and the postmodernists have kind of perfectly predicted the modern man, I understand there is a certain amount of jest in the last quarter of the lecture, towards this way of thinking but it has no doubt come to fruition.
So what now!
Spot on
Build structures which mould and support strong individuals and design an empire around a set of guiding principles and values extracted from the best of empires?
Or wait for it all to collapse into nuclear Armageddon. Can't be worse than the shitshow we live in, can it?
We are the hollow men
Rejecting everything except the self… great summary of postmodernism. Beautiful lectures; clear, fluid, and to the point
Sabino Luévano Since then, postmodernism has evolved to reject the self in favor of the state and the collective
@@michaelthomas6280 not really. There are many postmodernisms, left and right-wing, even centrist posmodernism. Republicans are so postmodern in their radical cynicism and nihilism. Democrats are postmodernists in their addiction to "constructionist approach" to everything.
@@sabinoluevano7447 Republicans are Nihilists? what are you talking about? The left, in America are much closer to Nihilism than anything.
@@sabinoluevano7447 Yeah. The left is much more nihilistic, unless you're talking about the extreme right.
@@sabinoluevano7447 But i'd recommend u to explore why people voted for trump first, so u can get a kickstart understanding of classical liberalism and their emphasis on freedom of speech.
Postmodernism is a hot date. Not wife material.
And thus why we are living in a world of “ intellectual sterility”, he was like an Oracle talking about our modern reality.
I very much appreciate these lectures. Even when all of my professors say to pursue another subject worthy of my time, or could achieve income necessary to retirement. Philosophy isn't meant to be profited off of and compartmentalized into a monetization scheme. And it isn't just a language game to confirm my rhetorics. It is a place to learn, live and grow. We are all human and although we may reject each other we should not reject life itself.
I mean this respectfully but if you have professors saying that you've got some lousy professors on your hands! Dream big kiddo. You could be the next Kant if you set your mind to it!
It's unlikely you'll be the next Kant as per Kishore Das, but at least you will have given thought to your actions. And you know what the ancients said about the unreflected life........
When is philosophy NOT life...you are right it is about self growth...why are the two not one. The beauty of your professors is that they see a shining star in you...it all ego...theirs. Do what works with your soul. Also appreciate it that your professors care. Bottom line, it's your life.
I think maybe these points of view are not more widely disseminated because they would lead to the loss of a considerable amount of intellectual camoflage essential to the currency of a number of academic positions.
Wow. What a blisteringly riveting account of today.
This man has been pwning the intellectual elite for 30 years. Damn, Michael, you truly are a gem. I can’t tell you how lucky I feel to be able to access this.
@Thomas Flynn That is fucked up dude
I never thought I would encounter an intellectual equal to Jordan Peterson. This man transcends even his scope of philosophy. We are so lucky to have this for free.
@@Craiglicious000 Sugrue and many other living philosophers far exceed Peterson. Peterson doesn't read the books and ideas he critiques, for if he had read any post-modernism, like Sugrue clearly has, he would not use the term post-modern marxism. It is a contradiction in terms, and as Sugrue points out, Lyotard attacks critical Marxism. The fact that Peterson does not know this, is embarrassing.
@@OdoItal When I used to listen to Peterson, I was like 18 and hadn't a clue about philosophy so I took me a while to outgrow him. And while he actually is pretty well read, you're right about his ridiculous post modern prejudice.
@@Craiglicious000 fair enough
"There was a time, long ago, that indignation was an emotion, now it's a job". Brilliant!
No, now its a response to misinformation of the type Sugrue expounds.
@@robbeck4358 Sad, an attempt to elevate your vocabulary and use the word you found in a thesaurus in the wrong context; all in a futile attempt to add character to a baseless claim. A better word for your sentence would be purports. Expound is used for a positive context, purport for the derogatory. 👍
@@Reignor99 thanks, I don't want to make personal criticism of Sugrue. The postmodernists saw today's problems 50 years ago. These identify how democracy is overwhelmed by technology, now digitally integrated by the security state. Hiding behind the framework of democracy now lies a financial-military elite determined to take-over the world on a false prospectus. US capitalism is destroying the environment and the social contract for 90% of humanity. This is the line of conflict reflected today in relations between US/Russia and China. The Non-Aligned Movement is also on board here, so 140-150 countries of the world have watched and been victims of US capitalism, not democracy, for seventy years since the 2ndWW. The end of the Unipolar/Imperial moment is here, or the end of the world. WW3 is here already: simply search online for references.
@@robbeck4358 I mean, he was explaining Lyotard quite well I think. Just very opinionated, but that doesn't matter if you know which parts are opinions and which parts are theory, I didn't mind it as someone who generally tends to lean to the postmodern way of viewing things.
I have to add that mostly all of his critique of Lyotard is completly valid and well thought out.
Sugrue is a fascist because of that quote. So brilliant!
45:23 "And the result of this scrupulosity is not intellectual cleanliness; it's intellectual sterility." Hard hitting!
Yeah I dont care for Lyotard..
Love Dr Sugrue’s sarcasm toward the end 😂
That was one of the most brilliant explanations of the issue of abortion I've ever heard.
“I can be confused on my own.”
Story of my life.
So in Lyotard's ideal world, witchcraft would be just as valid and trustworthy as science?
I mean I pretty much agree about postmodernism but I honestly feel like these past couple lectures just come off almost as rants lol. Like I don’t really think I have a grasp on what exactly makes lyotard’s thought distinct after watching this, but I get that postmodernism has lots of problems.
It seems to me that Sugrue does not give a fair account of Lyotard's work. Like many American commentators, Sugrue seems to fall in to the trap of suggesting that Lyotard is advocating a Postmodern way of thinking, or a way of doing philosophy, but Lyotard's book is arguably much more of an account of how we 'do think' rather than how we 'should think'. Lyotard linked the rise of Postmodernism to the development of "late capitalism." He argued that consumer culture and mass media, key features of late capitalism, create a fragmented and superficial experience of knowledge. Although Lyotard highlighted the inadequacies of grand narratives, he also questioned the absolute dismissal of all grand narratives, arguing that some narratives can offer valuable guidance, even if they are not universally applicable.
The Postmodern condition can be defined as the rejection of Industrialism as the defining methodology of society. Or by disenfranchisement from Industry, both of which lead individuals to focus on the Self. For some, this can lead to a more authentic life. For others, it leads to the lifestyle of January 6. Now, with common folk having access to computers, trucks, and guns, someone will have to define the Self in a postmodern milieu.
Dad said Authenticity is a vacuous intellectual dead end and the January 6 crackpots are as authentic as their opponents.
@@dr.michaelsugrue Well, everything is relative. I guess. Leni Riefenstahl considered her subjects to be authentic. But I meant authentic as genuine, coming naturally from impulses of the archetypal self, without being vitiated by the framework of industrialism. Yeats called inauthentic living “automatonism.” Like Ashli, who ignored Democratic reforms of usury and charged with the mob Part of the self is animal aggression. There is also rationalism, aesthetics and the transcendent. Robert M. Pirsig used the term "quality" to mean an authentic, harmonious preconscious relationship between these impulse systems. Pirsig used the word “quality,” much the same as Heidegger used “authenticity.”
Dad said that Riefenstahl, Heidegger, Goebbels and the rest WERE authentic, which makes manifest the vacuity of such moral judgement. What is authenticity good for? Why should we want it? It is a verbal disguise for nihilism, insignificant and empty.
"Left wing gud, right wing bad" that's how you sound like.
What would be more authentic than living out the logical conclusion of your moral believes. If you believe the election was stolen it would an obligation to storm the capitol, if no other option is available.
It never ceases to make me laugh how anyone can state "There are no meta narratives" without admitting the categorical, definitive, absolutist nature of their statement. Gee, and I thought the heart of philosophy was self-awareness and developing objectivity towards oneself??
Post modernity is stagnating intellectual cancer
Brilliant and so prescient that it hurts.
35:00 really funny that this was mentioned. this was exactly what i was saying to my mother the other day in light of the supreme court’s recent decision. had no idea mr lyotard came up with this idea already but it’s something i definitely believe about modern politics. these people dont even agree on the axioms, so how could they possibly agree on conclusions.
Romanticism squared 😀!
Release all of the Sugrue archives…
“There’s a tendency in post-modernism to reject the external world because it gets in the way of our egocentrism.” (32:12)
The most annoying and sophomore thing about postmodern philosophers is they depend on the rationality of previous philosophies and or Frameworks to discredit those Frameworks and support their own.
In other words they are saying "let me tell you why all these other moral and philosophical systems are garbage" using the logic and reasoning of those moral and philosophical systems to build their arguements.
It's a complete non starter.
"Nothing means anything or whatever" is the most trivial and obvious non arguement, as it does nothing to move the conversation forward.
In logic/computer programming, it's the equivalent of the NULL. It is nothing, and therefore the problem solving/algorithm cannot continue.
when I listen about this, I can't help but see how objectiveness and subjectiveness are kind of yin-yang opposites. The more you try to sway and cement one view you find out you cannot actually live and proclaim the one view before becoming unhealthy or insane.
from one hand you want to find the Truth, the good way of living, finding Objective value systems that is right, according to logic and reason. But then you hit this closed and rigid wall of being too tyraneous or "prickly" as A.Watts says. And you find yourself in need of some kind of pluralism, something that truthfulness and rightness can be opposed to, so you actually need this "gooeyness". But then again if you will go all gooey plural and diverse, then everybody has its own subjective truth, and you will hit another wall, or rather hole, that we cannot even communicate effectively, because we live in a tower of Babel, where we cannot speak the same language, have common values, or even same money system... because you know, why should I respect that money has value for this somebody, if I do not agree to you system of objective values. I am not even sure what you say to me is true, because I dont agree with your meaning of words you are using...(You see where I am going with this?)
I also cannot avoid to see the analogical connection to political rightists and leftists. They in a way cannot agree with each other at the same time but cannot live without each other.
You cannot come to a conclusion with those, is it diversity vs oneness (so to speak)... Not one of them can be a "winner", every time one of them wins they actually lose on all sorts of levels.
its like a no go situation, a numb limbo.... you have to choose one way but you cannot choose it completely...
It does seem a bit nihilistic...
The way I think of it is this: on the color spectrum there are sections which are undoubtedly red and others which are undoubtedly not red, say, purple. In that sense, we have near certainty one is red and one is purple, and red is not purple, so we can call this objective. But there are an infinite amount of colors in between red and purple, such that you can't tell sometimes if it's more red or more purple. Objectivity and subjectivity are not necessarily exclusive. That is to say, just because you can argue we can know nothing for certain in the absolute sense doesn't mean that we can't say some things are more certain than others, which allows us to formulate a system of thought that is at least functional and practical. Yin and Yang were always meant to be balanced and mixed, not chosen between.
@ls1212 : your discourse:
Beautiful
Lucid
Science mingles with Phil;
Thkful to thee
@LS1212 our need for rough approximations to stand in for definitions does not invade the sanctity of the concept of objectivity. You perfectly articulate my biggest gripe with the balance fanatics. To say that there is balance or a pursuit towards balance speaks of the existence of a rigid false dichotomy.
A great book against this binary morality is thus spoke zarathustra.
At 3:40 does anyone feel that there is a nod to Rand?
Isn't P.M a necessary 'check and balance' mechanism by which power of once group is kept in check by the ever emerging marginal elements and participants that were previously unrepresented in the Democratic process. It is those many factions being able to hold the symbolic dagger to plunge in to the symbolic 'Caesar' that tries to take total control? Not saying anything is good or bad about it though through this lens it does have some function.
Seems like we like in this post-modern post-truth world where the words don’t mean anything
This guy was so far ahead of the curve.
Vert grateful for helping me understand Lyotard’s fascinating ideas.
I'm no PHD from Columbia but I know post-modern philosophy isn't trying to be prescriptive. If anything it can be a touch hypocritical as what I consider the most critical piece to the scientific method is scrutiny and the understanding that every logical premise is in it's nature falsifiable. Would science want to be proven wrong if it were? Why this vitriol?
Am I the only one that When he starts ´´Lyotard is...¨ have to mentally finish his sentences saying: Lyotard is obviously half lion half leopard.
Lyotard is the measure of all things. The tragic outcome would be the obsolescence of judges and lawyers.
Victor J. Vitanza
Jean-François Lyotard Chair and Professor of Rhetoric and Philosophy at The European Graduate School / EGS.
"desire for the unknown" 3:20 is ambiguous! Does this mean we desire to dispel the unknown, or that we actually desire to not know things? Haha indignation used to be an emotion now its a job 4:20 hilarious. It sounds like post modernism is more of a personality disorder.
The opposite of Lovecraftian Cosmicism - Fear of the Unknown
What a genius interpretation. Maybe though he’d add something given the global situation. The final word “sterility” seems particularly ironic.
what are you rebelling against - marlon Brando says; what u got? Postmodernism at its greatest - comedic and deadly serious at the same time. Love that analysis. Can't believe how many people believed in this crap when I read sociology - their claims on a society without meaning, truth, agency and their massacre of linguistics is almost laughable. Intellectual pursuit for the game of it - or as Michael asks What sense does it make? we find this really interesting. LOL.
I love how Michael Is such a good pedagogue that he can both explain, even contract and compare highpoint in various works of this extreme positions and always always end with a thoughtful great ending rhetoric.
Unrestrained narcissism…sums up the age we find ourselves in.
Even Nietzsche says we should be "Yea" sayers. I think there is truth, and we should find it.
The result of this lecture is a desire to read Plato (again...more carefully)
Bro who the fuck are you? Nietzsche critiqued absolute truth